Alex Singleton is part of the Daily Telegraph's leader-writing team and is a contributing editor at the Sunday Telegraph. You can visit his personal site and follow him on Twitter.

Neither Gordon Brown nor David Cameron cares what the IPPR says

What is the point of the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR)? It was once Tony Blair’s favourite think tank. But it is no longer influential and has produced no groundbreaking work in the past five years.

On Tuesday the IPPR releases the final report of its grandly titled Commission on National Security. And a little birdie tells me that the report is going to make the hackneyed argument that we need to surrender more power to the European Union to improve our security.

Needless to say this quite predictable report will be of no consequence. Let’s be realistic: the Tories, soon to take office, have no interest in the IPPR, for both ideological and tribal reasons. And Gordon Brown has no interest in the IPPR, either, because he hasn’t had a new thought since 1994 and because the IPPR is too associated with Tony Blair.

Think-tanks have limited shelf lives – and the IPPR is now well past its "best before" date. Poor things.